Beneath the Skin
by DieInVinter
Summary: Another speculative epilogue to Unleashed. It only dies when you do.


Written for Natmerc in the yuletide fanfic exchange. I thought this ending seemed like the only possible outcome, but it seems as though all the other fics based on this idea deal with it differently.

xXx

Something's taken root in me.

I can't remember killing her. I can't remember even wanting to. I'm not like Ginger, whose pacts of blood have infected me in more ways than just this.

_Now, you are me. Isn't that what you always wanted?_

"No ... I'm not ... I don't enjoy it like you did."

_You might, in time._ She sounds more bored than enthusiastic. After dying, she'd regressed to the Ginger I'd known.

"Time is the last thing I can afford to give"

_Think about it, B. We used to just imagine stuff like this. And now it's real. You can do things, Brigitte, things you've always wan--_

"I won't!" I yell, surprising even myself. Ginger, too, probably, because it took her longer than usual to find her next cloying, cornering remark. She wasn't used to defiance from me, but whenever I showed it, her face lost all gentleness. I couldn't see her. It was too dark to see much of anything down here, save the vague outlines of unknown objects and the faint, frail luminescence of my sister's ghost, emanating from somewhere beyond my sight. In this profound darkness, it seemed almost as though her voice was coming from my own mind, almost as if it was the virus speaking to me.

_Maybe it's not like it used to be,_ she said quietly, with a faint hint of venom.

"No shit, Ginge. It's not." This isn't Bailey Downs, this isn't petty ostracism, this isn't Trina Sinclair's dead body, and this isn't my knife in your side. "I can't be like this."

And for a moment, I was my sister, vomiting up blood and body parts in our locked bathroom, scratching desperately at the door, and my sister was me, alone and imprisoned in a basement with a two bodies, one of them human, and one of them as estranged from humanity was it was possible to become.

_So what are you going to do about it, B? Do I have to save you one more time?_

"I suppose that depends on you, and whether or not you want to help me. Ghost locked that trap door, and I don't know if there's any other way out."

_This place might as well be a bomb shelter. It's so old, there aren't even window wells ... I've been looking around while you were ... well, not entirely yourself ... and there's nothing._

"So, you mean ..." I trail off, looking up at the small square outline of light streaming down from the door on the ceiling.

_You have to get her to let you out._

"I'm her reign of moral terror,' remember? She's not about to give that up," I said, disgruntled, remembering Miranda's constant mistreatment.

_Maybe you could give her something else._

"I don't exactly have a lot of stuff on hand," I say, frustrated with both Ginger's cryptic advice and the situation itself.

_You have power. Make her think your power still belongs to her._

I pause, perplexed. "What do you mean, exactly?"

_Why don't you ask her yourself?_

I walk closer to the square, becoming only dimly aware that the dirt below me had turned into a dusty wooden floor. Small footsteps pattered upstairs.

"Ghost!" The footsteps paused. "Ghost!"

A small voice floated down from the square of light. " ... Brigitte?"

"Let. Me. Out." There was no compromise in my voice.

"The beast's mistress had _many_ enemies."

"Ghost. I don't give a fuck about your juvenile revenge fantasies."

_Not a good way of getting what you want with her, Brigitte._

"It's not like ... It's a reign of moral terror," the little girl said, stressing the words she felt justified my imprisonment and usage.

"Is there anything I can do to convince you?" I asked, exasperated.

Silence.

"... Make me one, too."

"Make you one ... what?" I asked, but I already knew.

"A werewolf." I cringed at the word.

_Shit, B, a moral dilemma. What are you gonna do?_

"Are you ... insane? Do you have any idea what this is like?" I demand angrily.

_You do realize the irony of asking this girl if she's insane, right? She thinks she lives in a fucking comic book._

"But no one can do anything to you. They wouldn't dare."

_Well, if that's what she equates your situation with, who are you to tell her she's wrong? You have to get away from here._

"Did someone ... do something to you, Ghost?" I asked, genuinely curious. "I mean, beyond how they usually are to you?" I added, recollecting how the other girls in rehab bullied or ignored her.

There was a pause, and the trap door creaked open, flooding my eyesight with light and pain.

"Don't try to escape. I wouldn't recommend it." The danger in her tone let me know I really should not attempt it.

_There goes Plan B._

I crawled into the light, clawing at the floor to help me drag myself out. My elongated nails were gone. A far as I could tell, I appeared perfectly human. And covered in dried blood. I thought to myself how very similar it looked to the fake stuff Ginger and I used to artfully apply or drench ourselves in for our theatrical suicides.

The blonde girl was staring at it as well, as if the reality of what she had done was just making its full impact.

"Umm, do you have anything I could use to get rid of this?"

"We'll deal with that later. It's transferred through a bite, right?"

"Or blood transfusion," I added with finality. I wasn't biting anyone.

"There's a towel in the bathroom," she said, looking at the blood, clearly put out that the classic method of transmission depicted in the trashy comics she read wasn't going to become a reality. I stand up to go, but in a second she beat me to it.

"I'll get it."

_I might be going out on a limb here, but I don't think she trusts you too much._

"Tell me something useful. Besides ..." I look at my hand, with its two scars I made for Ginger and the blood of my victim, "... who would?"

_I would, B. And I'm the only one you should trust, too. Everyone else always wants something._

"The world isn't as full of bad people as you seem to think it is."

_Can you honestly say that after all the shit we've been through since that night in the woods, and even before that, too? How many good people have we come across in all this? How fucking many?_

"I -"

"Who are you talking to?" I look up to see Ghost with the wet towel, eyeing me suspiciously. I grab it and ignore the question, scrubbing away and the dried blood. She watches me idly for a moment, and then strolls into the other room. "Come over here. There's a fire going."

I hadn't realized how cold the basement had been, and sat in front of the fireplace. It was almost like how it was before, when it still seemed like she was trying to help me. I shake off that nostalgia, replacing it with the resentment that really should be there.

She stares at the fire, almost like she's been reduced to a primal state. I remember something I'd read in Bailey Downs, before all this started - that all our actions are guided by desire for either murder or sex. It's in the Id. Things like animals or children are made entirely of Id, while adults develop other sections of their psyches - the ego and superego, or conscience, as determined by what those in authority tell us is wrong. Ghost's Id was in her eyes right then, and I realized that all the curse does is erode the human face from the surface, and dissolve the human conscience that lies beneath it. This must be the way she'd stared at Barbara, burning.

If Ghost wanted to be my sister, then she'd have to share in my sister's fate.

"Tyler was the only person who was ever kind to you ..." I stroke her grey-blonde hair, like a sister would. Like my sister would. Ghost was silent. "I mean, Grandma must have been pretty bad, right, if you were willing to do that to her? You don't really want to take away her nerve endings so she can't feel pain, because you like to watch her suffer, don't you? And Alice. Even if she was taking care of you, she only kept you around so she could keep getting money ... but Tyler; Tyler was your only friend." My hands go down to her neck, and I could feel her tense up. She wasn't sure if it was a threat or an act of empathy. She's completely still.

_I'd expect kicking and screaming right about now. People are surprising, aren't they, B?_

"And you lied about him. You played me ... so you could have him dead. You don't need my curse, Ghost, because you're already infected. I'm going to stop it now ... yours, and then ... mine. If this is the only way I can fight what's in me ... then this ends now. I snap her head just like I had to the deer than was still out in the front yard. I stand in shock for a moment at how easy it had been. I must have retained my strength from the last time I changed. "You know, I'd thought of burning you alive like you did to Barbara, but I thought I'd be a little more humane than you were. That's ironic, isn't it, humane?" I close her pretty dark eyes, still consumed by the fire and her fear. The person who'd eventually find her body shouldn't have to look into them.

Ginger's pallid face stares at me from the darkness of the corner of the room, with the same blank, accusatory expression she'd had when I lost control and used Tyler as a release for the curse. Except that now there's was a vague glint in her eyes, and the faintest hint of her old smile. I take Barbara's rifle, laughing a little. Ghost hadn't used all the bullets, after all. Sitting on the floor, holding Ginger's hand tightly, we press our twin scars together, just like they had been what seemed like years and years ago.

It's kind of funny, really. Killing myself with a gun is so mundane compared to all the suicides we'd come up with.

"Out by sixteen ..." I mutter. Ginger's eyes flick up to meet mine, filled with her familiar resolve.

I pull the trigger, and felt myself fall onto my back as my vision went black around the edges. I was still holding onto her hand. She lies next to me, paralleling of one of our fake suicides. It all became so real, so fast. She says something else to me before I slip into nothingness, right before the world goes silent.

_Together forever._


End file.
